The field of the invention is to a tool, and method, for opening, piercing or crushing a hollow plastic canister or container, such as a key, paper tape canister 20 of the type shown in FIGS. 6-6B of the attached drawings containing secret code, cryptographic on tape 12 dispensed one day at a time to disclose a secret code for use by United States Armed forces with each COMSEC unit thereof having the duty under rules of strictest military secrecy to safeguard these canisters, to distribute them only to the few personnel authorized to use them in that military unit, to account for the whereabouts of all distributed canisters at all times, to retrieve spent canisters for destruction under strictest secrecy, to pierce these spent canisters, and then to be sure no secret code containing tape in any of them is inadvertently discarded.
Prior to the present invention, this task was both tedious and dangerous. The prescribed method involved enclosing canister 20 in a plastic bag, piercing each side of the plastic canister with a screwdriver, and opening the canister with a blow of a sledgehammer. Sharp pieces of plastic debree easily pierced the plastic bag, endangered all personnel thereabouts by the shrapnel-like explosion of the sharp plastic pieces, and required extensive work to clean up.